blog post #5

Katie Wandrey

Blog post #5

Humus Compost

            This week we started reading the book, The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka and I have enjoyed every page of it thus far. The ideas Fukuoka has just about the human race overall are fascinating, especially the way that he presents them. He says in part I, “Human beings with their tampering do something wrong, leave damage unrepaired, and when the adverse results accumulate, work with all their might to correct them” (18). I love this concept because of how relevant it is, especially to today’s society. I would argue that today’s society is much more aware of the damages humans have inflicted on this Earth because of the decades of polluting that have been accumulating, until the most recent generation finally stopped and looked around with a new set of eyes, which revealed massive wounds amongst our planet. The amounts of carbon and harmful chemicals that have been released into the air, predominantly by humans, is out of control. Not to mention the trash build up and overflow of our waste into other ecosystems (i.e. the ocean, forests etc.) All of these mistakes have been made on the false intentions of mankind. We wanted to build cities, create jobs, strengthen relationships and societies to ultimately create a perfect world for ourselves. Yet, we did not see the detrimental effects of our creations to our true home, the Earth. I do have hope for our seemingly hopeless species. Those who study environmental chemistry could possibly be our saving grace, specifically my friend who is in that major currently at BSU. I was talking with her the other day about how much harm we have done to this Earth and how we do not seem to care about an issue until our lives are all at stake, and the topic of carbon pollution came up. I spoke about a PBS video we watched in class about soil. I said that we walk all over dirt as if it means nothing to us when in fact, it is essential to our very survival. Without soil, we would have no foundation for our creations, our individual homes. Furthermore, our relationships and growing societies would collapse. Our food nutrients to grow physical strong would have no source, no way of getting into our bodies. Fukuoka and the PBS video both speak of the continuous depletion of the nutrients from our soil and they touch on the idea that we need to stop treating our soil, like dirt. They say in the video, “Soil is the wealth of nations” and they are not wrong. From mono-cropping, over grazing with cattle and chemical dumping, our soil has been stripped to its bones and severely dehydrated of its natural nutrients. While over grazing cattle, manure accumulates in large amounts all over the fields, which releases carbon into the atmosphere and overtime, that carbon release builds up and is a major issue for the planet. Manure was thought of to use as a reliable source for fertilizer, but I explained to my friend a unique idea for fertilizer; humus compost. I thought this idea was awesome because it helps to solve two of the world’s biggest sicknesses; carbon pollution and human waste! I talked to her about this because of her beginner expertise and possible future career as the environmental chemist who saves the world. I know it is farfetched, but it gives me hope to see people studying about the world’s chemistry because that is essentially what this world is made up of; atoms, which contain chemicals which should be understood by humans in order to keep our species alive and thriving with our truest home, the planet Earth.